


Taking Sides

by CameoAppearance



Category: Town of Salem (Video Game)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2015-05-15
Packaged: 2018-03-30 17:50:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3946021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CameoAppearance/pseuds/CameoAppearance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How can you blackmail someone who doesn't even remember anything?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taking Sides

The Amnesiac spends most nights wandering the graveyard, searching the headstones for any hint as to who she might have been before the accident. Names she might have known, occupations where she might once have made a living. It hasn't helped so far. She doubts very much that she was an amateur psychic or a lynching-obsessed lunatic, and she's certain that if she'd ever known the unearthly rituals necessary to bring a person back to life it would take more than head trauma to blot those eldritch secrets from her memory. Nothing seems to fit.

As she heads home late one night, she sees an envelope sticking out of her mailbox. Inside, photos of the Amnesiac breaking into the Vigilante's house. They're black-and-white and slightly blurry, but it's unmistakable. The last one sports a note written in red ink: "Stay quiet and no one needs to hear about this." Puzzlingly, it's signed with a kiss.

Fear of the town and the mafia both turning on her is explanation enough why she can't bring herself to say anything the next day; the townies had lynched their own people over less, and the mafia would have no reason not to shoot her for defying them. The Amnesiac wouldn't have much to say in any case, preoccupied with her own confusion. There's yet another corpse lying in the street - the Investigator, apparently, sporting fresh stab wounds to the chest. People are arguing about how the Doctor should have healed him, or the Lookout should have been watching his house. All it means to the Amnesiac is one more grave to jog her memory; maybe she, too, used to cross-examine people, prying into their private affairs and searching their homes for the tiniest of clues. Who knows?

She breaks off her train of thought when she notices the woman watching her from across the circle, who very deliberately winks when the Amnesiac returns her gaze.

Another envelope arrives that night, stuffed under her door when she returns from a fruitless night in the graveyard. This time, it's photos of the Amnesiac engrossed in conversation with a man who can only be the Godfather. He's facing away from the camera, the brim of his hat concealing part of his profile, but his aura of menace -- and what could be the shape of a gun under his jacket -- makes it clear that this isn't the Mayor's authoritative bearing. And another note, ink as red as fresh blood: "Time's running out. Remember anything yet?"

Once again, signed with a kiss. In the back of the Amnesiac's mind, it occurs to her that the woman who winked at her was wearing the same shade of lipstick.

In the morning, two more of her neighbors are dead. The Doctor is one, literally stabbed in the back as he rushed to attend the Vigilante; the other is the Witch, gunned down by the very man who narrowly escaped being shot to death by the mafia that night. Thanks to the dead Doctor, the Vigilante's pale and shaken but alive, a favour he can no longer repay.

There's a voice in the Amnesiac's ear, sending chills down her spine. "You're awfully quiet."

The Amnesiac turns, raising an eyebrow pointedly. She's all too aware of the consequences of a spoken response. It's the same woman as yesterday; the same lipstick, same red curls and glasses. She smiles roguishly at the Amnesiac, puts an arm around her shoulder, and whispers directly into her ear. "We know you better than you know yourself. Don't keep us waiting any longer, or we may lose our patience."

The Blackmailer blows the Amnesiac a kiss as she heads home for the night. The Amnesiac, flabbergasted, can feel her cheeks flushing.

That night, the Amnesiac paces the graveyard. She stares at the headstones of dead civilians and criminals alike, the oldest ones as familiar as old friends -- the Medium shot dead on the first night, the Jester who went to the gallows cackling that evening after the mafia framed him for the murder -- and the newest ones freshly dug for the Investigator, the Doctor, and the Witch.

There's a mobster buried in the corner of the cemetery, too. Executed by the Jailor, after the Sheriff tipped him off about the suspicious documents she'd found in the so-called Investigator's home. The Amnesiac looks at the Consigliere's grave and feels a pang of recognition, a ray of light shining through her clouded memory. She knew him, she knew his colleagues, she remembers a redheaded woman with filing cabinets full of incriminating photos--

She knows exactly where to find them, and she won't be as careless as her predecessor.

The reborn Consigliere strides through the doors of the Mafia's hideout at the break of dawn, as the mobsters inside are concluding the night's business. The Godfather looks surprised to see her, but the Blackmailer doesn't. She slips an arm around the former Amnesiac, pulling her close. "Welcome back."

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Town of Salem OTP thread](http://www.blankmediagames.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=20266) on the forums.
> 
> For some reason I had a specific skin in mind for the Blackmailer, but not the Amnesiac.


End file.
